The Life and Times of the Pacific Coast Bird People
by TacticianLyra
Summary: To Zak, it made a perfect amount of sense that the family that made a living studying cryptids were cryptids themselves. He didn't once think that there might've been more to why they were the only ones.
1. Prologue

_**-Begin AN-**_

_**Wing AU,**_** anyone?**

**So this old hyperfixation decided to rocket out of the grave and keep me in a chokehold until I wrote this out. I'm going in for the long-haul, in that it'll be something of a canon retelling with quite a few twists and a few OCs sprinkled in here and there, and otherwise expanding on some things that the show left a little too vague for my liking, plus general AU goodness.  
**

**tl;dr _this will follow canon plot more or less_ _to the letter_ up until the end of S1, in the form of abridged episodes, with some notable divergences/alterations to suit the AU. Some will be expanded-on episode rewrites.****  
**

**Come S2, we shall veer away from canon. I've got _plans_, folks. Which may or may not involve this lovable cryptid family suffering just a little more than they did in canon.**

_**-End AN-**_

* * *

**Everyone has secrets. My family just has bigger ones, and they're called cryptids.**

The night was alive with the sounds of nocturnal birds calling and insects buzzing, enough sound to otherwise make picking out specific sounds impossible—but the eleven-year-old boy currently racing through the undergrowth wasn't relying on hearing.

It was pretty hard to miss a glowing white frog in the dark, after all, even with the komodo dragon also chasing after it, though the reptile's interest in it was more than probably predatory-based.

**Chupacabras, the Loch Ness Monster, tsuchinokos, the Bishopville lizard-man—I've been studying them and more with my mom and dad since I was born, practically. There's a _lot_ of weird things out there, some of which are so obscure you'd probably think I'm making them up on the spot.**

The one downside to it being nighttime was that even with his eyes being as good as they were, they could only pick up so much in the limited lighting. Which meant he didn't see the fallen tree looking a _little_ more rotten than what was safe to walk on, up until it split underfoot.

He didn't fall for long, though, because someone caught him by the foot. What sounded like _"Be careful!" _let him know who it was, and he laughed a bit nervously.

"Thanks Fisk. I owe you one."

His cryptid brother grinned at him before hoisting the boy up onto his shoulders and taking off after their other family member.

**The Fiskerton Phantom is one of them. He's a seven-foot gorilla-cat and used to live out in the woods near Nottinghamshire in England, but the townsfolk were trying to hunt him down, so my mom and dad intervened. Now he lives with us, and we just call him Fisk. He's one of the best brothers I could've ever asked for.**

Unfortunately, the other thing about nighttime is that it made someone that could put a cuttlefish to shame even harder to see, hence Fisk tripping over Komodo when the frog came back into sight, the three of them tumbling down a hill all while becoming tangled in vines.

**I know Komodo's not the most original name out there, especially for a komodo dragon, but I was _one_ when mom and dad found him. I don't know the whole story about him, but I _do _know that he was genetically-modified in some sketchy lab out in Indonesia before he even hatched. He can camouflage so well, he's practically invisible.**

The roll down the hill ended with the three of them in a muddy lake, the sound of something that sounded alarmingly like a large rock following them, the sight of which had all three of them shutting their eyes and hoping for the best.

"So, who wants to tell me—what's going on here?"

The grunted question had the boy open one eye, the other following when he saw that his dad had stopped the rock with some effort; he was slowly being pushed toward the water by the weight of the stone, but wasn't in any danger. "Uh…science?"

"That's my—boy!" The rock was unceremoniously rolled to the side.

"Doc, _frog_," he heard his mom call from the top of the hill.

"Zak, come on—you heard your mother."

"Okay, just—let me get untangled first."

**There are other people out that that are like us, too. Well, not _exactly_, partially because they all do different things, but they're all part of the same secret organization that my parents are in. All scientists, all working to figure out the mysteries of the universe before the bad guys do. **

**Some of them do more normal things, like Dr. Cheveyo, who can name at least fifty constellations off the top of his head, or Dr. Cheechoo, who studies geological anomalies.**

**Then there's Dr. Grey, who's trying to find the answer to the question of if wormholes can exist or not, and Dr. Beeman, who's _pretty sure_ there's aliens somewhere out in the ****Xi Boötis star system.**

**They call themselves the Secret Scientists. I would've gone with something cool, like Blasterminds or Destructobrains, but no one asked me. **

**And the cryptids, that's what we take care of. Every kind and size out there, the Saturday family can handle.**

"Do you think your cryptid-influencing powers can handle this, Zak?" Drew asked.

Zak sputtered a bit. "Mom, it's a _frog_!"

"I know, I know, but there's still so much about this…_thing _you can do that we don't know about. It's nothing like what your father and I are able to pull off."

"It's a controlled experiment," Doc reassured. "He's got to test the extent of his power sooner or later. And we're right here in case anything _does _go wrong." Pause. "And it _is _just a frog."

"A frog with a potent neurotoxin in its tongue," Drew reminded.

"Which is why we're right here."

She sighed, shaking her head a little, before handing something to Zak; he'd seen it in the lab on the airship a few times, but this was the first time he was getting to hold it. "Remember, the Hand of Tsul'kalu is a mystical artifact. A tool to help you focus your power."

"Mom—" Zak tried interrupting.

"Find your center, and let your instinct—"

"_Mom_, I got it."

Hopefully. The last time he did this, he hadn't even been thinking about it—it had just _happened_. One second a dakuwaqa had been trying to eat Fisk, and the next it had been swimming away in a hurry just because he'd _told it to_. With his _brain_. Somehow.

It hadn't happened again since, but there were some times when…well, he just _knew _if a cryptid was near them. Even before then, actually, now that he was thinking about it—

"Zak?" Doc asked.

He shook his head. "Sorry, just…trying to remember what it felt like."

That was easy enough, actually. It was pretty hard to forget a feeling _that _weird. Recreating it was different—up until it suddenly was there again, right as the frog's eyes lit up orange, along with everything in his line of sight looking…well, orange-ish.

His dad took a few slow steps forward, smiling. "The legendary Cameroon flashlight frog. I'd say we've verified its existence—what about you?"

"Looks pretty real to me," Drew agreed.

"Hey, are we just going to ignore what I'm doing here?" Zak asked with some false indignance. "Watch—" He turned his focus briefly away from the frog so that its eyes dimmed, and then back again to the opposite effect.

"Zak, honey, don't toy with nature please," his mom reprimanded.

"I'd like to measure the lumens on that glow," Doc said, opening up the cryptipedia. "Zak, can you hold it still for a minute?"

"Uh…" He was getting a weird feeling now that was kind of like being irritated, but he had a feeling that it wasn't really _him_ getting annoyed. "Yeah, I can hold it."

"Don't push the Hand of Tsul'kalu too hard," Drew warned. "Mystical artifacts can be dangerous—"

"Mom, I can handle—"

"Zak, careful with the frog's tongue!"

"Sorry dad—

"Darling, let him focus—

"Guys, I'm serious, I can handle—huh?"

Where had those other frogs come from? And…why were their eyes red instead of pink?

"…it looks like the glow's color changes dependent on the frog's emotions," Doc said tightly.

"Good to know," Drew said in the same tone. "And I think I know what _that color _means!"

**There's one other thing about us. Namely, the Saturday family mega-secret. **

**It's so secret, not even the other Secret Scientists know about it, and both mom and dad drilled it into my head the moment I was old enough to understand that it's supposed to _stay that way_ until the right time…whenever that is.**

The next thing Zak knew, Drew had grabbed him, and then there were above the canopy in what felt like seconds.

**My parents and I are technically cryptids too.**

**See, normal people don't have person-sized bird wings sticking out of their backs. I got my first actual feathers when I was eight, but my wings are still too small to even really glide with. Mom and dad say that they're getting there, though, and that means soon I can start working on figuring out how it works. And after that it'll be _flying_. Sounds fun, right?**

"_Moooom_, I thought you said you wouldn't do that anymore," Zak complained when they'd reached the airship; Doc was right behind them, Komodo on his back and Fiskerton hanging onto an arm.

"I know, I know, it's just—it's an old habit," Drew not-apologized, smiling a little. He groaned in response, before jumping on reflex when an alarm started blaring.

"That's from home," Doc reported, expression darkening.

"Home?" Drew repeated. "A month after you upgraded the security system?"

"A break-in? Cool!" Zak exclaimed.

"Uh, no, _not _cool. You know the rules, Zak—there's a fight, you boys stay in the airship."

"Aw, man…"

"_Aw man_," Fisk agreed.

**Flying's not all we can do, either. I've got my cryptid powers. Dad can shrug off anything just short of three gigawatts when it comes to electricity, not to mention being able to charge his own equipment. And mom, if it's snowy or foggy enough, she'll disappear just like Komodo. **

**She can't turn it off like he can, though, which might be part of why we all wear bright orange all the time. It's hard to miss that color in monochrome places.**

**There's a lot of technical stuff to go with it, like us being hollow-boned, though that just means we have to have our own private doctor who's both sworn to secrecy and got the background check to _end_ all background checks before he got let in on the secret.**

**As for how we hide them when other people are around, dad worked out some holographic tech. His is programmed into the cryptipedia, mom's got a necklace with an emitter in it, and I've got a bracelet.**

**So long as we don't run directly into an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to bypass the safety mechanism, we're safe. **

**…so long as no one touches our backs, anyways.**


	2. The Kur Stone

**You can probably tell where exactly I gave up in trying to make this one my usual writing style.**

* * *

Of course, the fight was over by the time Zak could get there with Fiskerton. All that was left was a trashed living-room, two parents with matching _I'm-disappointed-in-you _looks, and a cleanup job.

"Pretty bold of Van Rook to try hitting us at home," he said after a few minutes, picking a few books up from near where a bookshelf had been blown to bits. "Were they after something?"

"If this is you trying to change the subject, it's not going to work." Drew gave him a pointed look. "You're still in trouble, mister."

"Hey, I'm just trying to be part of the team here!"

"Zak, you're not _part of the team_, you're our _son_. And I don't think bringing you into fistfights with mercenaries is going to win us any parent-of-the-year awards."

Seeing that that point wasn't going to go anywhere, Zak switched tactics. "Dad, c'mon, talk to her! You're the one that told me to test my abilities!"

"Well, that's true," Doc started, only to stop short at the withering look Drew gave him. "But I'm one-hundred percent with your mother on this one."

Plan C, then, specifically when "There's a fine line between adventure and danger, and we're trying to keep you on the _safe _side of that line," was heard.

They both winced hard when Zak held up a very specific picture frame. "The Kalmykian snakes were different," Doc added quickly. "We didn't know they exploded."

"Yeah, but I handled it!" Zak protested. "I'm not saying I want to _look _for trouble, I just want to do what you guys do! Y'know, fight the bad guys and save the world?"

Drew raised one brow. "You know you're _eleven_?"

"Yeah, but I finally got my first feathers last month, remember?" He disabled his hologram-bracelet and extended one wing for emphasis.

There was another thing about him that came out of the left field, aside from his cryptid powers. His mom's feathers were nearly entirely an iridescent silvery-white, the only other color being irregular spots of reddish brown on the anterior side that ranged in size from blotches to freckles, like someone had flicked a paintbrush at her.

His dad's were a metallic-looking dark gray for the most part, with his primaries and secondaries ridged with black and the coverts with tan.

And Zak's own? Jet-black, fading to white on the primaries and secondaries, all while streaked with orange. They had no idea where the third color had come from, or why those same streaks were _fluorescent_.

Drew looked like she was about to say something else, but a high-pitched buzzing sound that meant they had a high-priority call waiting stopped that short. "We'll talk about this later," Doc said, turning to start toward the control room.

Zak followed, hearing his mom's indignant "Talk about—_he's_ _eleven_!"

Was it a win? Maybe.

"Hologram," his dad reminded, prompting the boy to turn it back on before letting the call through.

_"Oh thank heaven you're all okay," _ was the first thing Dr. Grey said, clearly relieved. Her usually-neat reddish-blonde hair was a mess, and Zak could make out burns on her face, on top of the detail that she normally wouldn't be in cold-weather gear when talking to them, unless she was outside for some weird reason.

"Miranda? What happened?" Drew asked.

_"Argost's beastly stooge, that's what happened," _was the growled response.

Doc's expression went pinched. "Are you alright?"

_"Nothing more than a mild concussion, I assure you—but he took my piece of the stone!"_

"What?!" both Zak's parents exclaimed, before Drew's eyes darkened. "Van Rook," she growled. "That's what he was after!"

Miranda paled over the screen._ "You too? Did he get it?"_

"No, our piece is safe," Drew reassured. "What about Henry?"

_"I've been trying to reach him, but he hasn't answered."_

Confused, Zak turned to look back at Fiskerton, mouthing _Stone?_ The unspoken question got a shrug in response.

"I'll pull up a satellite image," Doc said, going to the keyboard. There was a pause. Then, "Zak, _why_ do we have nineteen episodes of V.V. Argost's Weird World recorded?"

_…crud. _That was what he forgot to close out last night. "Uh, research? Know thy enemy?"

"It's saved under _favorites_," his mom said flatly.

"W-Well, maybe research _is _my favorite."

"There aren't any satellites near Henry's lab right now." Doc looked away from the computer. "We'll have to check it out in person."

_"Be careful."_

"Hey, it's _us _you're talking about," Zak said.

Dr. Grey made a face. _"You're taking him along with—?"_

"No I did _not _say—" Drew started.

"Sorry Dr. Grey but we gotta go!" Zak hit the button to end the call before whirling on his heel, dashing for the door. "C'mon people, it's action time!"

* * *

Dr. Cheveyo's observatory was one of the few labs that Zak wasn't really familiar with, but he was _pretty sure_ that half-destroyed and in flames wasn't how it was supposed to look.

"Sorry I didn't have time to clean up," was the dry-sounding remark from the astronomer when he saw them come out of the airship. "I wasn't expecting guests."

"Looks like you got the worst of it," Doc said sympathetically. "Who was it?"

"Argost himself," Henry replied briskly.

Zak wasn't expecting to hear that. "Wait, Argost was here?" he asked, voice brightening a bit.

"Yes, and he blew up my lab. How _cool _for me."

_Right, bad guy. _Of course his favorite TV star had to be a bad guy.

"He didn't get your stone piece, did he?" Drew asked.

Henry sighed. "Unfortunately."

"Then it's starting again," Doc said darkly.

"Okay, could someone tell me what's going on here?" Zak cut in, throwing his arms up a bit. "_What_'s starting again? And what's this stone you keep talking about?"

His parents proceeded to do that thing that was basically them having a silent debate that probably should've taken an hour but really went by in just a few seconds, before his mom said "The Kur Stone. Supposedly, it's the key to finding the beast called Kur by many ancient legends, primarily Sumerian ones, but there's been implications of it having been around the globe. According to legend, whoever can control the cryptid Kur can control the world—and the best shot at finding Kur is the stone."

"Your mother and I led the team that discovered the stone," Doc picked up where Drew left off. "At first, we didn't even know what we had, but somebody else _did_."

"Argost?" Zak guessed.

His dad nodded. "He disguised himself as part of our team and created a diversion. By the time we found out, he was gone, and so was the stone.

"We managed to track him down at Weird World, and went in with a team of fifty. But by the time we left that house of horrors…" Doc let out a breath, expression momentarily darkening. "There were only seven of us left."

It took a moment for that implication to click in Zak's head. "Wait, so all those old colleagues you guys said aren't around anymore, they're—?"

"Yeah," Drew confirmed quietly. "Argost escaped, but we had the stone. And given that we knew what it was then, we decided that Kur was one secret that needed to _stay _secret. We split the stone into three pieces, each left with a different scientist."

"But they _didn't _stay split up," Zak blurted. "Argost has two of them back, and you guys have the only one left?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"Then what are we standing around here for?! We have to get back home before Argost gets there!"

"Zak, Zak—it's fine. Our piece of the stone isn't even at home," Drew reassured. "We found a safe place in the Amazon river basin years ago."

"_What_?" Dr. Cheveyo exclaimed, getting Zak to start a bit. He'd been so quiet through the whole thing that the boy had forgotten he was there. "You left it unguarded this entire time?"

"Give us some credit here, Henry. I didn't say it was unguarded."

"No—he's right, mom. If Argost knew where to get the other two, what if he already got our piece?" Zak asked. "Why do we even have a super-fast airship if we only ever go cruising speed?" He looked over his shoulder. "Fisk, back me up here?"

_"Huh?" _Fiskerton looked over from where he'd been trying to start a cleanup attempt.

"Wh'—you weren't even listening, were you?"

"Zak, it's fine," Doc intervened, sounding calmly exasperated. "Even if Argost knew where to look—"

"No, we have to go get it!" Henry interrupted. "Find some other way to keep it safe!"

"It _is _safe!" Drew sounded not-so-calmly exasperated. "And Henry, I _really_ don't think you're in any shape for a trip to Manaus!"

"This isn't just your decision! The whole world is affected by—_ack_!" He broke off with a startled cry when Komodo pounced on him from behind.

Komodo's only response to the three-way reprimanding he got was to growl at Henry. Or more specifically, something _on _Henry. "Uh, mom?" Zak started slowly, pointing at what looked like a miniature manta ray with a scorpion's tail. "What's…uh?"

"A neural parasite." His mom's voice had gone tight. "It feeds on electrical impulses from the brain. Typically just causes sluggish reflexes, but if anyone knows how to tap into its brainwaves…"

"He just heard all of that, didn't he Henry?" Doc asked.

"I…I'm sorry. I tried to warn you—_ghk_!" He broke off with a choked sound, briefly convulsing, before rising stiffly to his feet.

"H-Henry, are you—?" Drew started, only to be cut off.

"Greetings and bienvenue, Saturdays," the astronomer said, but his eyes looked too glassy right now, and his voice sounded too wrong. Too hollow, wrong intonations, too much like it was a completely different person talking…and Zak knew only one person who gave greetings like that.

"No, no that's—that's impossible," Drew stammered slightly. "The parasite doesn't transmit both ways—"

"Impossible? Only one with a _tragically _limited imagination would use such a vulgar word," not-Henry-definitely-Argost sneered, the expression only half-matching and looking _wrong_. "We deal with cryptids, my dear—we live in a world of _impossible_.

"Eleven years, you've kept my prize from me. Eleven years of tracking down each of you miserable so-called _scientists_, and then discerning which of you had the pieces of the Kur Stone."

Fiskerton growled, taking a step forward, prompting Zak to step in front of him. "Fisk, no! Dr. Cheveyo's still in there somewhere; we can't hurt him!"

"Sweet little boy," Argost purred, the tone by itself making him shudder involuntarily. "I've waited eleven years for this. Why would I let _anyone else _do the hurting?"

It occurred to him that heat-haze wasn't usually pale-green in color, or smell like sulfur.

"The Al-Kaseem firecracker beetle was given a highly-flammable defensive spray. All it takes…is a _spark_." On the last word, a rock was sent flying with a kick.

"_Everyone get down!_" Doc shouted.

Right as Zak hit the dirt, the air around them all exploded, everything around them getting uncomfortably hot for a few moments—and the next minute or so was maybe the most useless minute of his life, right after the Kalmykian snake incident, in that he was boxed in by both his parents and Fiskerton, while they fought off beetles, which eventually stopped exploding and started…gathering.

_But that's a last-ditch nest-defense attempt, why would they—?!_

"Zak _run_!" his mom yelled right next to him. One of the nice things about having some avian instincts was that their subconscious fight-or-flight response was a little twitchier than normal people, which meant they all had some nice reaction times when they needed it.

That didn't really help when it came to the counter of them being on a plateau six-thousand feet up with nowhere to run in the first place. And being hollow-boned meant that they were sent flying _a lot easier _than normal people.

So it was for the second time within the past twenty-four hours that Zak found himself being carried by one of his parents. "When am I gonna be able to start practicing again?" he asked, not-really-glaring.

"Probably not for another two or three months, honey," Drew replied, at least looking apologetic this time.

"Aww…"

* * *

_"Henry took the worst of that blast, but he'll just be walking away with some new scars," _Dr. Odele was saying. Both Doc and Drew sighed in relief. Then he switched the subject tracks. _"Argost must be on his way to Manaus already."_

"We're already en-route," Doc said.

_"It's going to be dangerous. Why don't you leave Zak with me until you secure the stone piece?"_

"As much as I'd like to—"

"Wait, what?!" Zak cut in. "We get the _biggest _mission of my life, and you're gonna leave me with _Odele_?" Zak honestly didn't have anything against the meteorologist, but the guy lived on a tiny island in the Atlantic. Not much to do there!

"Zak—"

"Is this still about that thing with the toriko? I _told you_ Fisk dared me to go into its nest!" Fisk made an indignant exclamation in the background.

"_Zak_, you're coming!"

"I—wait, really?" His mom also said the last two words at the same time.

Doc looked sideways at her. "I don't like it either Drew, but we might need him. The tapire-iaura, remember?"

Drew frowned, but didn't say anything.

_"If you think that is for the best, then good luck," _Odele said, ending the call.

Zak, meanwhile, tried to remember what cryptid that was for a few moments, ultimately getting a blank. "Um, what were those ones again?"

"One of the most dangerous cryptids in South America," his mom replied. "They're amphibious, predatory, and fearless; exactly why we chose a very specific spot along the Amazon river."

"So you'll need my powers to hold them off," he guessed. "Yeah, I can do that.

_"And me?" _Fisk asked, looking a little put-out.

"Don't worry Fisk, I'm sure you're an important part of this mission too," Zak reassured.

"Absolutely," Drew agreed after a moment.

"I'm honestly hoping we won't have to use your abilities here Zak, but just in case…there's something I've been working on for you."

* * *

Zak had decided he liked the Claw pretty quick. Especially after it had made actually beating is dad in a sparring match possible.

Then the whole airship had shaken, with his mom giving the clarification that they'd found Argost—or rather, he'd seen _them _first.

Fun fact about the Saturday airship: it could withstand category-three hurricane winds.

Not-so-fun fact: it wasn't made with dogfights in mind. And missiles had a _bit _of a different impact style than hurricane winds.

So there was only one thing left to do, really.

…so long as he could convince Fisk to go along with it, because he was pretty sure "Ycantflyet" meant exactly what it sounded like.

"Yeah, and I'm not trying to _fly_, I just have to _glide_ enough so that I get onto Argost's ship," Zak clarified, putting in the code to open the side door in the hangar bay. "And I'm gonna need a hammer throw to get some speed at the start. Once I'm there, me and the Claw will do the rest."

_"Will that work?"_

"How do we know it's _not _gonna work?" he asked in response, raising his voice so Fisk could hear him over the wind, while grabbing onto the edge of the airship's stabilizer wing so that he wouldn't get blown clean off the ship.

At that, Fisk just gave him a look he recognized as his equivalent of their mom's _"stupid idea, don't try it" _look, visible even through the pseudo-foggy look nictitating membrane gave everything. "Hey, you still owe me for what happened on Fiji! You'd still be cursed if it wasn't for—_whoa_!"

The airship suddenly tilted sideways, getting them both to slide back through the open doorway. Following that was a concussive explosion that preceded a weightless feeling that Zak assumed meant they'd just been shot down, and were therefore falling.

That assumption was proven correct when the next thing he knew, he was picking himself off the metal floor, head throbbing. To the side, he heard Fiskerton groan, to which he mumbled an agreement to before getting to his feet, going to push the door open.

The first thing that hit him was the _humidity_, and the second thing was the cacophony of birds and bugs that made up the generic rainforest atmosphere, this particular one South American-style.

"Mom? Dad?" he called, pausing to wait for a response. It didn't take long for Doc to call back, from toward the bow of the airship.

Drew ran over as soon as she saw them, with a rushed "Are you both alright—are you hurt?" while looking them over, going so far as to feel for his wings.

"Mom, we're fine," Zak protested, backing up. Then he saw the _incoming-scolding _look.

"What were you _thinking_?" his mom exclaimed, throwing her hands up. "Are you legally insane?"

"I wasn't—" he started, stopping upon realizing something. "Wait, you banked the airship _on purpose_ then, didn't you?"

"I can't _believe _you would try a stunt _that _stupid!" Drew went on, confirming it.

"I can't believe you messed up my stupid stunt!" he shot back, groaning in exasperation while turning to glare toward the trees instead. "Why does it always have to be _you guys _being the heroes? You never even give me a chance!"

There was a pause, before he heard his dad saying something too quiet for him to really catch, followed by, "Father-son bonding time."

Half of Zak just wanted to pretend he didn't hear, but the other half knew that that'd really just prove the opposite of what he was trying to get them to see. So he followed his dad to a shaded spot, where there were a few rocks clean enough to sit on.

"I'm not going to ask why you'd try something like that, because I think I already know the answer," Doc started. "I know there's a lot going on, and you haven't been able to do much—"

"Because you guys aren't letting me even try," Zak mumbled.

"_But _it's going to come eventually. Hopefully not until you're ready for it. Zak, have you ever wondered why you have your cryptid powers?"

He looked up at his dad confusedly, not having expected that question, before answering "Sometimes. Honestly, I thought I'd have something like you or mom, but…"

"And so did we, now that you mention it—but that's beside the point. Your mother has a theory: in a lot of ancient stories and folklores, there's a balance. Or, in terms I'm more comfortable with, there's an action that has an equal and opposite reaction.

"When we found the Kur Stone eleven years ago, we brought the potential for great evil into the world. But that's also the year you were born."

Zak frowned. "I don't get it," he said slowly. "What does Kur have to do with me?"

"In what surviving stories there are of Kur, it was implied that it could control other cryptids, or at least command them."

And then it clicked. "Like my powers."

Doc nodded. "Exactly. If Argost finds Kur, and manages to control it, he'd have the power to raise an army of cryptids. And what could possibly stand up to that?"

"…my powers."

"Equal and opposite," Doc confirmed.

Zak stayed quiet for a few moments, taking it all in. "So I should just let you guys know when I'm ready to save the world, right?"

"Truthfully, your mother and I are hoping it never comes to that, because that's a lot of pressure to put on an eleven-year-old boy. But like I said…it's only a theory." He winked, before adding "Try to keep your ego in check, alright?" while ruffling Zak's hair.

"_Doc_?" Drew called suddenly, voice wavering and tone nothing short of startled. "You're going to want to see this!"

Both of them took off back toward where the airship had gone down in a run. The first thing Zak saw was Fisk waving his arms and staring up, seconded by Komodo growling and snapping.

The third thing was the detail of his mom currently engaged in a sort of aerial dodging contest with a…pterodactyl? It looked like a pterodactyl, mostly teal-green with black wing membranes and a lighter-green crest of feathers on its head, notably having a crested beak.

"Hang on guys, let me just—" he started, moving to get the Claw ready, but the moment he took his eyes off the pterodactyl it lunged at _him_ instead.

Then he was up in the air, but it wasn't one of his parents carrying him. "H-Hey, let _go_!" Trying to twist out of its grip didn't do any good, though it obviously hadn't expected him to smack it with a holographically-hidden wing.

Or for his mom to slam into it.

Which also conveniently got the pterodactyl to drop him. Or not-so conveniently, given that they were _mid-air_. Zak only had the chance to get his own wings half-unfurled before he hit tree branches, there only being a few that snapped before he was caught by one big enough to _not _break.

_Okay, need to work on my reaction time for that, _he thought, shaking his head a bit, before getting the Claw ready and climbing up to the highest intact branch that he knew would be able to hold him.

He knew he had to act fast the moment he saw sunlight reflecting off the fire-sword. He connected to the pterodactyl a lot faster than the frog, at least; she abruptly dropped a few feet, right out of the way of a sideways slash that probably would've gotten one of her wings. "Mom it's okay, I'm fine!" he shouted up before climbing down the tree.

The pterodactyl made a quiet purr-type sound at seeing him this time, keeping her head ducked. Zak was under the impression that it was her way of apologizing. "Hey, no hard feelings," he said, reaching out to pet her. Something else caught his eye while he was at it.

"I don't see anything like this in the cryptozoology databases," Doc said, half to himself. "Could be a holdout from the prehistoric era."

Drew came down seconds later. "Zak, stop petting that thing—you know the rule with things that attack us unprovoked!"

"But she _wasn't _unprovoked! See, we crashed right through her nest!" He pointed at the sad remnants of insect-stripped tree bark and broken twigs lying by a tree that had more than probably been felled by the airship's crash-landing. "She probably thought _we _were attacking her first."

Drew's face fell slightly at seeing that, but a low rumbling sound halted any further conversation, not to mention spooking the pterodactyl into flying away with a screech. Argost's warplane circled above slowly, and Zak was left feeling like they were being taunted.

Doc was probably thinking the same, given the low growl from him. "Let's go. We have to get there before he does."

"Hold on, we're not seriously gonna _walk _there, are we?" Zak asked, running after his parents. "Wouldn't it be faster if we flew?"

"Uh, _one_, only your father and I can do that right now, remember?" Drew glanced back at him without stopping. "And two, we _do not _want Argost of all people to know about us being able to do that."

"Who's to say he hasn't seen other people like us already though?" Zak countered. True, other bird-people haven't ever been mentioned on Weird World—the closest thing was the Owlman purportedly somewhere in England, it was something they hadn't found yet—but maybe there was an episode he hadn't gotten around to seeing yet.

"We're walking, and that's _final_."

* * *

While Zak absolutely loved the fact that he'd been around the world before he'd even turned ten, taking an hour-long hike through a jungle wasn't really his most favorite thing, _especially_ when the humidity was high enough to have him sweating buckets.

When they reached the muddy sandbar where the stone piece was, things were going great.

And then Argost surprised them with Devonian Annelids.

Getting knocked out by oversized bloodsucking centipedes wasn't fun. Neither was waking up bound overkill-tightly by vines, or having Argost sic a pack of tapire-iaura on them.

There had really only been one thing for him to do there—and though the tapire-iaura were borderline starving, they hadn't been expecting for him to talk to them with his thoughts. (Mom told him not to but it had been too late by that point.)

It hadn't been that hard to convince the pack's leader to claw through the vines for him, either, wasting no time in grabbing the Claw.

…then he found out that Munya was apparently some spider mutant. That had been gross to witness. Also gross was the feeling of having mud stuck in his feathers, after getting flung through the air.

It wasn't hard to get Argost to drop the Kur Stone, at least, with a lucky shot with the Claw. Then it was a game of keep-away…which was ended the moment he almost killed the pterodactyl with Mongolian death-worm venom.

Doc said that saving the newly-dubbed Zon was the right choice, but hearing (read: eavesdropping on) the initially low-toned and then borderline-frantic conversation between his parents and the other Secret Scientists later that night…

Zak couldn't help but wonder just what his parents might've been leaving out when they'd explained about the Kur Stone to him.

* * *

"Munya? It seems as though we may have to keep an eye on the Saturdays." Argost hummed to himself as he recalled one…oddity, he'd noticed. Of the feats Devonian Annelids were capable of, floating was not one of them.

As with the Amazonian Creeping Vine—they did not wrap around thin air, and yet that was exactly what they seemed to have been doing.

There had been something behind each of them. Hidden, yes, but most certainly there.

"Just what secret are they still hiding?" he mused, as Munya placed the three stone pieces in front of him.


	3. The Ice Caverns of Ellef Ringnes

**Skipping the Hibagon ep for now, primarily because legit nothing would've changed plot-wise. There's a few other things which I might be able to sneak in as references, but if not, I'll go back and write it.**

* * *

It was too often that they had the airship going at top speed. Then again, considering that Dr. Cheechoo's base up on Ellef Ringnes had an amarok break into it…Zak wasn't entirely sure on what an amarok was, aside from nasty wolf monster, but his mom obviously did, and that obviously necessitated going from New Zealand to the Arctic Circle as fast as possible.

Right now, he was pretty sure it wasn't just the turbulence that had the airship shaking, given the near-whiteout conditions outside. "I thought it wasn't storm season up here?" he asked.

"It's not," Doc grunted, trying to keep a steady hold on the airship's controls. "But there's _never _a season for a storm _this_ bad."

"We're gonna have to put her down here," Drew warned, checking a screen. "Wind's starting to pick up again." Doc didn't protest, and the airship was settled behind a rocky mound just big enough to shield the ship from the worst of the wind.

"Wait, so we're walking out to Dr. Cheechoo's place?" Zak threw another glance outside.

"Your father and I are," Drew corrected, giving him a look. "You're staying here."

"We'll bring Dr. Cheechoo back here," Doc added. "Besides, there's no way Komodo and Zon would be able to make that trip."

"Wait, what?!" Zak exclaimed. "Why can't I go?"

"Because I don't want you _anywhere_ out in that blizzard." Drew sighed a little. "Storms like this are _dangerous_, Zak. We don't want you getting lost out there."

"Your mother's right about that," Doc agreed, pausing before adding "Speaking of getting lost, you should probably take the beacon," while looking at her. "You remember what happened that time with the injured Alaskan tiger?"

That earned a groan. "Doc, I love you, but you really need to stop bringing that one up. You _know_ I can't turn it off like Komodo can."

"Which means you'll disappear pretty quick out there."

This time, she glanced back out through the window. "…okay, good point."

Zak still wasn't really sure how his mom's camouflaging trick was different from Komodo's when it came to the specifics, but the technicality was more or less the same—it started with her outline going blurry, and then she was nearly indistinguishable from the snow several seconds later. Or at least, she _would _be, if it wasn't for the bright-orange of their cold-weather gear.

It wasn't something Zak would trade his cryptid powers for, but it was still pretty cool to watch in action.

He knew for a fact that Fiskerton liked watching it in action, too. So the moment their parents were out of sight, he took advantage of the distraction and launched the first snowball.

The ensuing snowball war went on for maybe ten minutes, ending very suddenly when Zak found himself nearly pitching over the edge of a cliff, with Fisk catching him by the coat hood at the last second—but the momentum was still enough to send the Claw out of reach and into the chasm below.

"That's not good," he moaned, watching it vanish into the darkness. "Fisk, c'mon, we have to go find it!"

Fisk made a face, babbling something and making a hand motion that brought Zak's attention to the fact that the airship was nowhere in sight. "W-We can look for the airship after! Claw first!" He lied down and peered over the edge of the cliff again, this time at the face of it to confirm that he'd be able to climb down it, before moving to work his wings through the slits in the back of the winter gear.

It was something of Doc's design, specifically for the three of them. Anything that was too tight tended to result in cramped wings, so most of their stuff was either loose-fitting, designed so that they could still move their fifth and sixth limbs, or a mixture of the two. It was also why the backs of their gear tended to be black, so that the holes wouldn't be that easy to see—and even if they were, chances were that they'd just look like a weirdly-placed pocket.

Fisk made a sound like a sigh before following him down. The crevice started narrowing after maybe seven minutes' worth of careful climbing, coinciding with the surface of the cliff face gradually becoming smoother.

When there was still maybe ten feet worth of a drop left, Zak found himself unable to locate any more ledges. On one hand, Fisk could just go down first and then get him onto the ground. On the other…

He side-eyed one wing, before making an estimation on how much room he had. Fisk looked up at him after climbing down himself, seemed to realize what Zak was thinking, and threw his arms up while babbling something. "Hey, it's just ten feet! I'll be fine."

Ten feet down, with maybe sixteen feet of room. The last time they'd checked, Doc had said that his wingspan was on par with a wandering albatross, which was the largest flight-capable normal bird in the world.

In other words, about twelve feet total. It'd be a tight fit, but he could handle that. With that thought, he turned and launched himself from the wall, wings flaring.

For a total of three exciting moments, he was moving horizontally. Then gravity kicked in and had him drop face-first into a pile of snow, the only warning being air resistance pulling his wings back.

He heard a sympathetic _"Ooooh," _from Fiskerton as he stood up, brushing the snow off.

"Okay, _maybe_ mom and dad were right and it's too soon," he muttered crossly. "But I stayed up for a second! You saw that, right?" He turned back to look at his fuzzy brother, who just smiled awkwardly.

Zak sighed, shaking his head before reactivating his hologram—for all they knew, maybe some people were sheltering down here from the storm. "Let's just look for the Claw."

* * *

In retrospect, Doc _really_ shouldn't have been surprised by this turn of events. Any of them, really, except maybe for Komodo insisting on tagging along with them this time. It helped him see Drew, at least.

At least, until the storm's intensity went up a notch, abruptly enough to make him stop for a moment, partially because now the primitive avian aspect in his brain was getting _very nervous _about them being out in the open.

"Something's not natural about this!" he heard Drew shout from somewhere in front of him—he could see Komodo _seemingly_ hanging onto thin air, which gave him an idea on where she was. "Storms just don't suddenly get stronger like that!"

As much as the scientific part of Doc wanted to argue, he had a nagging feeling that his wife was right in this case. Though he liked to call it intuition, he _did_ have an uncanny way of knowing when a storm was about to get worse or not—and there had been no warning this time. No warning at all.

(he was going to take it as a sign that Zak and Fiskerton were okay)

They at least had a warning in the form of something bright blasting through the snow from below before the ground gave way under them.

He was also very _un_surprised by the fact Van Rook was here. Old artifacts were worth a lot to many people, but if _he _was involved, there was no way any of this was anywhere near in good faith.

The wind howling above sounded eerily like a large pack of wolves.

Or amaroks, as it were.

* * *

Zak was _not _going to think about the fact that it was pretty likely that it was only because the amaroks were more angry that the artifacts had been stolen than hungry that he and Fisk were still in one piece, but now every adult in the tunnel system—their parents included, now he _really_ had to find the Claw—were too busy trying to hold them off to listen.

Which meant it was up to them to fix it.

The jetpack was both heavy on his wings and hard to control, the rush back to the burial chamber ending with him and Fisk hitting a rock hard enough at an angle to send them both sailing through the air.

Zak was able to get to his feet, but Fisk was out cold and he could hear the amaroks coming.

(it felt like something was buzzing under his skin and he felt _alive_)

The brown amaroks went back to sleep without much of a fight, their mounds resealed by the artifacts he'd put back before they'd gotten there, but the white one was _furious_, Zak was beginning to think that maybe this one was something different than the others—

_Go to **sleep **already_

It whined like a dog that had been scolded, slinking into the last open mound, which was sealed by the last artifact that Van Rook's apprentice put there.

Zak let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, the energy surge abandoning him then and there, before going to try shaking Fisk awake again. It worked this time, but the speed at which his brother's confused expression went to undisguised panic was kind of concerning.

Especially when he whispered _"Hologram!"_

At the same time, there was a quiet, drawn-out "_Uh_," from the apprentice.

A sideways glance confirmed that _yes_, his hologram was off, probably because of how he'd hit the ground earlier. _…crap._

"Uh," he echoed, turning and making an attempt at hiding the feathered limbs from view while smiling nervously. "You saw nothing?"

There was a pause, before he said "I saw nothing," in a weird tone. "Can I have my jetpack back now?"

"U-Uh, yeah."

Okay, so _that _mistake was covered. Now he just had to…wait.

"_Ugh_, I still haven't found the Claw," he groaned, facepalming.

The man paused from where he'd been about to take off, fishing around in his bag for a moment. "That wouldn't be this piece of junk, would it?"

It was. Crisis wholly averted.

* * *

…or so he'd thought. Upon returning to the airship, Drew informed them that they were both grounded for a week.

Even with Fisk trying to make up for what happened on Anchor Island by taking the blame of starting the snowball fight.


End file.
